Braised Short Ribs with Dijon Mustard

by Jessica

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I’m still not sick of using my dutch oven, and decided to braise some meat in them. I chose short ribs, a meat that can hold up more than two hours of cooking. This is a delicious dish for Friday night, but if you’re up for it, it’s easy enough to impress some friends with or make it for a special weeknight.

I found the recipe while browsing epicurious, and I’m glad I did! I’ll definitely be making this again, with a few adjustments.

Ingredients:

  • 1 bottle dry red wine (I used Merlot)
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • A few peppercorns
  • 4 lbs beef short ribs (I used two packages from the butcher, each with 5 ribs – it was only about 3 lbs.)
  • 10 shallots, trimmed, halved if large
  • 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
  • 6 plum tomatoes, halved lengthwise (next time I’ll probably only use 3)

Directions:

  1. Boil wine with a few peppercorns and two cloves of garlic in a 2-quart saucepan until it reduces to about 1 cup.
  2. While wine is reducing, pat ribs dry and cut into 1-rib pieces (this wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be!).  Season with salt and pepper.
  3. Heat a dry 5-qt pot over moderately high heat until hot, then brown ribs well in batches (I did it in two) on all sides, about 8 minutes for each batch. Transfer to a bowl.
  4. Reduce heat to medium and brown shallots in the fat remaining. Transfer to another bowl.IMG_3268IMG_3271IMG_3272
  5. Stir in wine (don’t forget to strain out the garlic and pepper!) and mustard. Add all the ribs and simmer, covered, for 1 hour, 45 minutes. I rotated the ribs about halfway through, just to make sure they all simmered in the wine.                                   IMG_3291
  6. Stir in the shallots and tomatoes, and continue to cook, covered and without stirring until the meat is tender, about 40 minutes. Serve in the dutch oven or a serving dish.

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I served four people with this, with only one rib leftover (it was eaten for lunch) – we all loved it. The meat was soft, though hard to eat if you didn’t use your hands. The sauce was great. It had lots of flavor, and we spooned it over the ribs and over some boring vegetables (it did make them more interesting). I’m glad I didn’t make less of it because it was delicious over brown rice and roasted vegetables for lunch the next day, too. I’m definitely making this again, with fewer onions and tomatoes.

What are your favorite dutch oven recipes?